It is with a dark face that the new director general ofEDF, Luc Remont, announced the results for the year 2022. There is talk of a 17,9 billion loss and an abysmal debt of 64,5 billion euros, while a commission of inquiry investigates the "reasons for the loss of sovereignty and energy independence of France” in progress. As it happened that a group at the head of the second largest park nuclear the world, long known for its expertise, could get to this point? Understanding the fall of EDF is not just an economic chronicle, but a lesson in both French and European history.
2022, annus horribilis
At first sight, the disaster of 2022 could be reduced to a bad economic situation. Indeed, EDF has suffered from a historically low availability of its nuclear park. More than half of the reactors of the country were at a standstill and the blame was placed on a phenomenon of "stress corrosion". The generalization of this premature wear of the pipeline is due to the mass construction of the plants starting in the seventies. Beyond the repair costs, this catastrophe above all cut the production, and therefore the incomes, of the group.
I 2022 results they can also be explained by the desire of the French government to have the group participate in the national "tariff shield". This anti-inflation device, set up to protect citizens from the effects of the Ukrainian war, forced the company to sell off its electricity.
But to sum up EFD's state to a bad economic situation would be to ignore the structural problems that undermine the group.
The roots of evil
According to an official of the ministry of the economy, quoted by Le Monde, “EDF, is the Murder on the Orient Express. Everyone is guilty."
And for the ex-chiefs of EDF, it is in the first place of the defendants Brussels. In fact, the Commission has almost always been at odds with the group, portrayed as a monopoly monster. After years of resistance, the company was forced to bow to the rules of competition. But rather than sell part of its business, as Enel was able to do, the French government preferred to force the company to sell off part of its electricity. Since the 2010 ARENH law, EDF is forced to sell 100 TWh of its nuclear generation at a fixed price. If the purpose of this measure was to balance the fight with the other producers, it actually emptied EDF's coffers without inciting the other producers to invest.
I governments of the last 20 years also bear their responsibility for this defeat. Unable to provide a clear timetable, they have remained in the balance between a desire for disengagement and the inability to propose another way. For example, Jospin cut funding for nuclear research in order to satisfy the Greens in his coalition. Hollande, in turn, had promised to gradually get out of the atom, without investing enough in it renewable energy. Finally, Macron began to close the plant Fessenheim at the beginning of the first mandate, to then announce in 2022 an investment of almost 50 billion euros to build new reactors.
Finally, not even the administrators later in the group are innocent. In particular, they have engaged in gigantic shipyards without the necessary skills, and have failed to coordinate with Areva, the other major French nuclear company. The most emblematic case is that of the Flamanville EPR. The construction site, supposedly finished in 2012 for a price of 3 billion euros, is still at work and has already cost 19 billion according to the Court of Auditors.
A European challenge
Today, the EDF case goes beyond French borders. With the challenge of energy transition, there are greater choices to be made in nuclear matters. And on the European scene, two visions face each other. France, at the head of a pro-atom coalition, challenges a team led by Germany, firmly opposed to nuclear energy since the Fukushima accident. In this confrontation, theItaly he has an umpire role to play. As proof, after Minister Bruno Le Maire's visit to Rome, Ansaldo announced a new collaboration with the French on the theme of…nuclear power. EDF, a European story.
